The Californian Department for Consumer Affairs Cemetery and Funeral Bureau provides a comprehensive guide to Funeral and Cemetery purchases in California.  As well as providing guidelines as to the legislation regarding the disposition of human remains, the Bureau licenses regulates, and investigates complaints against California funeral homes, funeral directors, embalmers, cemetery brokers, cemetery salespersons, cemetery managers, cremated remains disposers, crematories, crematory managers, and the nearly 200 cemeteries in the state.

Disposition Arrangements
The California Health and Safety Code states that an agent under a power of attorney, a spouse or registered domestic partner, any adult children, parents, adult siblings or other surviving competent adult kin have the right to make decisions about disposition arrangements after an individual's death unless other written instructions are left.

By law funeral establishments MUST quote prices over the telephone, and provide you with a General Price List (GPL) when you make an inquiry.

Home Death Care
The law does permit for you to prepare the body of your loved one for disposition.  If you choose to do this, you have to file a completed certificate of death that has been signed by the attending physician or coroner and with the local registrar of births and deaths. In addition you must obtain a permit for disposition from the local registrar of births and death, and ensure you provide a casket or suitable container.  You would then need to make arrangements directly with the cemetery or crematory for internment or cremation.  Human remains may be kept at home until disposition without embalming or refrigeration.  Although you must bear in mind that decomposition will proceed more rapidly without refrigeration or embalming.

Embalming
Californian law states that embalming is not required.  However, a funeral establishment must refrigerate an unembalmed body in its possession within 24 hours if disposition by burial or cremation does not otherwise take place.  You may wish to authorize embalming if there will be a delay before a public viewing period, however, you need to realize that embalming does not prevent decomposition.

Burial
Californian law does not require vaults or grave liners. Many cemeteries may have their own policies requiring them as they keep the ground from settling after burial and make mowing and maintenance easier.  A vault completely surrounds the funeral casket in concrete or other material, whereas grave liners cover only the top and sides. Neither is designed to prevent the eventual decomposition of human remains.  Many cemeteries also have their own regulations governing the erection of grave markers, so it is wise to fully check cemetery regulation before committing to any vault, grave liner or grave marker purchases.

Cremation
With regards to cremation in California, the law does not require the purchase of a casket before cremation. A combustible cremation container is required.  Californian law requires the signing of a Declaration for Disposition of Cremated Remains, a funeral home will usually arrange this as part of their services.  However you may also arrange this yourself certainly if you are dealing with the disposition directly you must do this.

Disposition of Cremated Remains
In California, you may choose any of the following methods of disposition of cremated remains:

• Placement in a columbarium 
• Burial in a plot in a cemetery 
• Retention at a residence - The funeral establishment or crematory will have you sign the Permit for Disposition showing that the remains were released to you and will file it with the local registrar of births and deaths. You may not remove the cremated remains from the container and you must arrange for their disposition upon your death
• Storing in a house of worship or religious shrine dependent upon local zoning laws 
• Ash Scattering in areas of the state where no local prohibition exists and with written permission of the property owner or governing agency. The cremated remains must be removed from the container and scattered in a manner so they are not distinguishable to the public
• Ash Scattering in a cemetery scattering garden
• Ash Scattering at sea, at least 500 yards from shore 

If the Death Occurs Outside of California
Burial - If death has occurred away from the city where burial is to take place, you will need to transport the human remains using the coordinated services of a funeral home in California and a funeral home in the city where the death occurred. If the body is transported by shipping on a carrier, the body must be embalmed prior to shipping. If it cannot be embalmed, the body must be shipped in an airtight casket or transportation container.
Cremation - You can arrange for cremation to take place in the distant city and for shipment of the cremated remains to you.

If you need to Repatriate remains from Outside of the United States
If death should occur in a foreign country, the U.S. Consulate in that country can assist in making arrangements for the return of the body to California or for its local disposition. You will usually be able to obtain English translations of the death certificate and other documents through the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate.

Whole Body Donation in California
If you wish to donate your body to a medical school for educational or research purposes, you will need to make arrangements with the school well in advance. It is a good idea to check with the school every few years, since procedures and needs may change. By law, the school is responsible for costs of final disposition.  If you are unable to locate a Medical School or Research Institution in California that will accepts anatomical donations, there are a number of whole body donation programs that operate throughout the United States that will make all the necessary arrangements on your behalf.

Californian Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act
The repatriation of Native American Remains is now governed by the Californian Department for Consumer Affairs Cemetery and Funeral Bureau, and Health and Safety Code Section 8010-8011 was cited in 2001 as the Californian Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.  This recognizes claims by indigents to repatriate human remains, and cultural artifacts, from museums and facilitates the resolution of disputes regarding those claims.

Hispanic Funerals in California
California has the highest concentration of Hispanic population, mainly immigrants from Mexico.  Although many Hispanics and Latinos choose to repatriate remains, the rapidly growing Hispanic-American population in California places a significant emphasis on "memorialization."   What this means is that Hispanics are more likely to spend money on a funeral as part of the tradition ingrained within their culture.  This has meant that a number of Hispanic mortuaries operate in California.

Careers in Mortuary Science in California
If you are considering a career in Mortuary Science with a view to becoming qualified as a mortician or funeral director in California the following organizations can provide you with further information:

Colleges of Mortuary Science
Cypress College Mortuary Science Department
9200 Valley View Street Cypress, CA 90630-5897
Telephone (714) 484-7270

American River College, Funeral Service Education Program
4700 College Oak Drive, Sacramento, CA 95841
Telephone (916) 484-8432

Funeral Directors and Morticians in California tend to migrate toward Oakland and San Francisco as this is where jobs for them are more common, relative to the population, than in other parts of California. In contrast, there are proportionally fewer jobs for Funeral Directors at Funeral Homes in San Diego and Funeral Homes in Santa Ana.   By the actual number of jobs for Funeral Directors, you'd find the most at Funeral Homes in Oakland and Santa Ana, although the California metro areas have the highest median salaries for Funeral Directors in California.

The table below provides an example of the proportion of mortician jobs. 
 
 

Metro Area of California	Number of Funeral Director/Mortician Jobs	Salary Scales (2008)
Oakland Mortuaries	80	$61, 530
San Francisco Mortuaries	70	$60, 990
Santa Ana Mortuaries	80	$73, 910
San Diego Mortuaries	40	$46, 320

Cremation & Crematorium Associations
Association of California Cremationists
P.O. Box 896 Los Alamitos, CA 90720
Telephone (562) 596-0464
www.accinfo.org

Cemetery and Mortuary Association of California
925 L Street, Suite 220 Sacramento, CA 95814
Telephone (916) 441-4533
www.cmaccalifornia.org

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